Teaching Speaking and Listening

             The four readings this week focused on using classroom conservations, both formal and informal, to facilitate learning.  The Cary article more specifically emphasized how teachers can support students’ first languages even if the teachers do not speak this language themselves.  An obvious answer is for teachers to establish classrooms that value and celebrate all languages.  English is often portrayed as superior to other languages and a teacher’s affirmation that all languages are valued equally is a great way to demonstrate support for students’ native languages (Cary 131).  Other suggestions include encouraging students to continue developing their skills in their native languages and for teachers to learn a few phrases or significant cultural items from students’ first languages.  However, in my opinion, Cary’s most interesting idea was his strong advocacy to include the parents of non-native speakers in classroom learning.  Cary emphasized offering primary language support by having bilingual parents and community members volunteer in the classroom to provide additional support to non-native speakers.  Cary’s research suggests that continued development of students’ first languages will ultimately lead to better English proficiency.    

             

           Chapter 18 of Brown described how to teach listening skills in the language classroom while chapter 19 emphasized developing students’ speaking skills.  In chapter 18, Brown advocates the explicit teaching of listening comprehension skills and strategies.  Although students don’t think about listening as consciously as they think about grammar, listening needs to be guided and develop as much as—if not more—any other language topic.  This listening needs to be meaningful though.  Students are not going to improve their listening skills from listening to the same pop music song every day; they need to practice listening (and speaking) in authentic contexts.  According to Brown, authentic language and real-world tasks enable students to see the relevance of classroom activity to their long-term communicative goals (Brown 311).  It is also important that listening comprehension is assessed in a variety of ways.  For example, listening can be tested by having learners physically respond to language, they can answer open-ended questions, or they can identify the important points of a listening passage.  

            In the next chapter, Brown also describes principles for teaching speaking skills.  One of his most interesting principles is to focus on both fluency and accuracy, depending on your objective (331).  In my opinion, in a comprehensive language class, both fluency and accuracy are of equal importance.  A student that is always grammatically correct and accurate but rarely if ever offers extended speech is not ideal.  Similarly, a student that speaks often but makes a large amount of errors cannot be labeled as an advanced speaker.  Teachers need to emphasize a balance between accuracy and proficiency.  Ways to do this include using language in meaningful contexts and also capitalizing on the natural link between speaking and listening (331).  Students need to practice their English in more contexts than simple greetings or social outings; they need to be able to use language to negotiate meaning or solve information gaps.  Kumar elaborates on how teachers can facilitate the negotiation of meaning amongst students.  

          Kumar calls for giving students a reasonable degree of control over their management of learning (Kumar 115).  If students have some options in regards to what they talk about and how they talk about it, their learning and interactions will be more meaningful.  One way students can do this is through topicalization, which is the “process by which learners take up something the teacher or another learner says and attempt to make it into next topic” (Kumar 119).  Kumar indicates techniques such as topicalization will result in more negotiation of meaning because students will have more interest and knowledge about the topics being discussed.  However, is this really the best approach to language learning?  What if I give my students the freedom to choose discussion topics and they consistently pick topics such as Miley Cyrus, Jersey Shore, and the Chicago Bears?  If topics do not involve language and scenarios that can help students become better communicators in authentic settings, then they may not be beneficial topics to use class time on.  I believe that the best approach is for teachers to identify a variety of topics or scenarios that can be discussed and allow students to select topics from this list.  Using this approach, students still get some say in their own learning, but the teacher also ensures that this learning will be meaningful.